It’s going to be an irresistible force against a very movable rock tonight as the Wild bring their historic power play into Washington to face a penalty kill that is among the worst in the league. Despite the edge, it’s the Wild’s even-strength play that will be the most important factor in the game tonight.
Game #5: Minnesota Wild (2-2-0) at Washington Capitals (3-1-0)
Location: Capital One Arena, Washington, D.C.
TIme: 6:00 PM CST
TV/Stream: FDSNNO, MNMT, FDSNWI, ESPN+
Opposing Point of View: Stars and Sticks
To say that the Wild’s power play is a strength of the team would be, at best, a mild understatement. No team in the history of the league, or at least since they got around to keeping special team’s stats, has posted a more successful power play rate with 20+ opportunities. The Wild have scored on 47.6% of their 21 opportunities. Their 10 power play goals are more than three teams total goals at all strengths.
Meanwhile, the Caps have killed off just 55.6% of their short-handed opportunities, besting only the Ottawa Senators (55%) and the Columbus Blue Jackets (53.3%). To their credit, the Capitals haven’t taken a ton of penalties, as they’ve been short-handed just nine times during their first four games, one of the lowest totals in the league.
That’s why the Wild are going to have to find a way to score at even strength. The high-paced style of play from the top two lines may draw some penalties, but they can’t rely on Washington to take careless penalties as some of Minnesota’s opponents have so far this season. So far, the Wild have four 5v5 goals this season, all four of them came against the St. Louis Blues in the season opener.
It’s been 192.33 of game time since their last 5v5 goal (Marco Rossi). Removing power play, short-handed, and overtime minutes from that total, and the Wild have played 151:01 of 5v5 time over their last 3+ games without finding the back of the net. That’s less than ideal.
If the team as a whole had been generating chances it would be a laughably bad stretch of puck luck, but they haven’t been exactly lighting things up. In their last three games, the Minnesota offense ranks 14th in shot attempts (60.66/60 minutes), 20th in shots on goal (33.37/60), 17th in scoring chances (26/60), and 10th in high-danger chances (12.57/60). At least they’re failing from dangerous areas.
Now they face a Washington team that is leading the league in 5v5 goals against, having allowed just two in four games. They’ve also allowed the fewest high-danger chances with just 26 on the season. Charlie Lindgren and Logan Thompson have provided excellent goaltending on top of the stout defensive play in front of them.
The Wild are going to just have to keep grinding away on offense. Coach John Hynes has already tried to mix up the top two lines as he swapped Joel Eriksson Ek and Marco Rossi at times in the game against the Dallas Stars. Based on their practice on Thursday, it looks like Rossi is back with Kirill Kaprizov and Matt Boldy, but if the Wild struggle to generate chances early on, expect the line blender to be fired up once again.
This five-game, East Coast road trip should reveal a lot about the team and give Bill Guerin an idea on what he might need to start looking for in regards to a trade. The team has shuffled out a couple of rookies that struggled in Hunter Haight and David Jiricek, so the next changes might involve making a trade to find some scoring depth.
Against the Blues, they showed that they are capable of scoring at even-strength, they just need one to go in early, and that could break the dam. It won’t be an easy task tonight, but that would make it all the sweeter if it does happen.
Potential Minnesota Wild Lines:
FORWARDS
Kirill Kaprizov - Marco Rossi - Matt Boldy
Marcus Johansson - Joel Eriksson Ek - Vladimir Tarasenko
Yakov Trenin - Ryan Hartman - Marcus Foligno
Liam Öhgren - Danila Yurov - Vinnie Hinostroza
DEFENSE
Jonas Brodin - Brock Faber
Jake Middleton - Jared Spurgeon
Zeev Buium - Zach Bogosian
GOALTENDERS
Filip Gustavsson
Jesper Wallstedt